Inaugural Conference of ASRGThe Asian Research Group at Buckinghamshire ChilternsUniversity College in Collaboration with the GreenwichUniversity, London

‘Rather than a manufactured clash of civilizations, weneed to concentrate on the slow working together of culturesthat overlap, borrow from each other, and live together infar more interesting ways that any abridged or inauthenticmode of understanding can allow.’ (Edward Said, 2004)

This aim of this conference is to examine the complex natureof the relationships and encounters between the imaginaryand the real 'East' and 'West', in the present and recentpast. We invite papers that utilise the term ‘fusion’as a place from which to explore the concept of interactionsand exchanges beyond traditional theoretical mappings suchas post colonialism and post-modernism. Our focus isprimarily upon the interactions between 'East Asia' and 'theWest' over the last 25 years with the development of newmedia - eg, computer games and the development of a globalmatrix of ‘fusions’ which move beyond the art world tothe everyday. We also welcome papers which seek tore-examine past encounters with an awareness of culturalfluidity.

Suggested topics, include, but are not limited to thefollowing:

1] Travel, Diasporas and mobile communities/identities· Community, migration and national identities· Memory, and identity: between here [new home spaces] andthere [place of origin] - and back again.· The relationship between ‘imagined’ and ‘real’pasts in the construction of diasporic communities· Autobiographies: Hybridity, post modernity and fusionsubjectivities· Literatures of encounter. - e.g. Angela Carter, PeterCarey, Natsume Soseki

2] Orientalism, Occidentalism.· Performance and Techno-Orientalism· Fashion, design and architectures of style and home· Cyberpunk, fantastic and future fictions· Intertextuality and the influence of Asian cinema onHollywood· Theatre & Performance from East to West: Noh, Kabuiki,Butoh, Brecht· Theatre and Performance from West to East - Shakespeare& Co· Games. Sony Play Stations & beyond.· The aesthetics of Manga and Anime· Web sites and fandom

3] Imaginary Homelands/ Imaginary Others· Histories, films and stories of the Orient: thetransmission and translation of East to West includingtravel writing, postcolonial literature and cinematicco-productions· Revisionist histories· Theorising encounters between East and West, and back· Geographies, philosophies and mental cartographies· Eastern landscapes and their aestheticization· Eastern Gardens and design.· Food and transformation - the foreign as the everyday· Fantasy Fictions. -e.g. Neil Stephenson, David Mitchell

5] Language and philosophy : between the translatable andthe untranslatable.· We especially welcome contributions which consider'continental philosophy' with their influence of Easternphilophy - and back· We are interested too in papers which address theblindness and insight of 'continental' philosophy of thelast century - eg Kristeva -On Chinese Women, Derrida,Barthes, Deleuze.

6] Seas, Islands and Peninsulas· We are thinking here of Conrad and his legacy- butdoubtless there are more imaginative 'takes' on this.

Submissions are invited from scholars and students of film,media, gender and cultural studies, architecture, design andfashion, history and art history, music, history,literature, sociology and cultural geography.

Creative submissions including short stories [no more than2,000 words], poems, and short videos [not over 10 minutes]are also sought; these should address the theme of‘fusion’ within the context of this conference and willbe judged by a panel of experts. The winning submissionswill be invited onto a special panel[s] at the conference,and will be exhibited at the conference, and on thedesignated web-site.

This conference is envisaged as the beginning of acontinuing dialogue into the relationship between the Eastand the West, and selected papers will be published in thelaunch issue of the Asian Studies Research Group e-journal.